


Neptune

by wonkyjaw



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fake AH Crew, Female Jack Pattillo, Mystical Creatures, Other, fun with a side of angst, only they’re wrong for a reason, semi-immortal Fake AH Crew, useless superpowers, who am I kidding...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-09-20 02:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonkyjaw/pseuds/wonkyjaw
Summary: The tired look in his eyes is enough to tell me it’s my neck that he wishes he was wringing. “You’re right, you’re not really a red cap kind of guy,” I say with a small nod.His eyes narrow further.I reach across the table and give him my hand and he shakes it rougher than purely necessary. Not that I can blame him.“You can call me Finn.”





	1. I’m Only Honest When It Rains

**Author's Note:**

> This is a middle of the night creation, but it was too fun to just... not do. The title and chapter titles will (as of right now at least) come from Neptune by Sleeping at Last.

I was that waterlogged feeling. Pneumatic lungs searching for breath and blind eyes grasping for light. Anxiety crept up, reaching like icy fingers around my heart, enough to make it stutter.

My gasping sobs stopped long enough to force the panic forward, my body flooding into overdrive as it assumed I’d given up. I was dying. Or, more realistically, my body thought I was dying and my brain moved along with it. A hand touched my shoulder and everything in me caught.

Something in that moment flipped a switch. My eyes snapped open and my shuddering sobs became a quieter shiver. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders, trying to stave off the breeze wicking the water from my skin. The hand fell away, but the owner stooped to sit beside me.

“What happened?” he asked, quieter than my chattering teeth.

I shook my head, eyes stuck on the lake in front of me. We’d been told to avoid it our whole childhood. We’d been warned of the monsters hiding deep beneath the surface, what would happen if we dared to get too close. I reached one hand out from beneath the wool covering my shoulders.

“Where’s William?”

I dropped my hand back down to my side. I couldn’t help the tears that sprung back to my eyes.

“It took him.”

—

Shuddering gasps wrack my body. It’s odd to feel soft cotton around my arms, a warm bed beneath me, rather than scratchy wool and cold earth. It’s odd to be reminded that years have passed. That it’s a dream. A nightmare.

A memory.

I blink and there’s no telling how many years pass behind my eyelids.

My body shakes itself out a little. My alarm clock still reads that it’s too early to be getting up and ready for the day, but I’ve spent enough time sleeping and dreaming to be sick of it.

“Nightmare?” Matt croons, leaning over from his perch on the couch to watch me emerge from the hallway. He was barely more than a dark blob on our couch as he lost his balance and fell into the cushions.

I shoot a pair of finger guns his way before reaching around the corner into the kitchen and turning on the coffee machine. When he sits back up he runs a hand against his scalp, his black hair longer than its usual cropped cut. It leaves a slight impression of his hand behind when he pulls it away.

“Whatcha watchin’?”

He shrugs. “Kitchen nightmares, I think.” I know he’s still watching as I roll my eyes and move all the way into the kitchen, flipping the light on as I go. Matt’s fancy coffee machine has already done pretty much all the work for me so I grab a mug from the cabinet above it and finish the process with a few button presses. “Have I ever mentioned how cute your groggy accent is?” Matt asks, forcing some abomination of an accent into his own tone.

I point at him menacingly, but my eyes are still too focused on the coffee slowly pouring into my cup. Modern inventions are basically magic wrapped in plastic.

When I open my mouth I take my time to make sure that my accent comes out as American as possible. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“C’mon, I’m only asking for a little nugget of information here,” Matt coos. I don’t bother looking away from the magic coffee happening in front of me, but I hear him moving around in the living room. “You’re always so secretive, just tell me.” I glance his way as he puts his elbows on the counter in beside me. He’s close enough now that I can see how his brown eyes are streaked with red. I think about telling him to go to sleep.

Instead I ask, “Tell you what?” I hope I look as bored as I feel.

“Ireland or Scotland - I can’t tell because it’s so faint.” He grabs my coffee as the machine finishes and takes a sip. He pulls a face before handing it over to me, which isn’t a surprise because he hates black coffee. I take it back, a tad more possessive now, and set it back down on the counter.

“That’s like asking if I’m British or Australian,” I mutter, bending to root around in the liquor cabinet. When I find the bottle I’m looking for after a blind search I grab it’s neck and grin.

“One, that’s not an answer,” Matt says, holding up one finger briefly before lifting another. “And two, it’s barely five AM, how can you be thinking about drinking right now?” He scrunches up his nose as I pour a good amount of Jameson into my mug.

I stare him down while I put the bottle back in its home and take a gulp of the coffee. When he opens his mouth to protest I cut him off. “It’s never too early when you’re awake to bug me.”

He narrows his eyes at me for half a beat before turning around and going back to the couch. After a moment I join him. There were years where I’d spent all of my time in front of a TV, but then computers and the internet came along and the rate at which information could be processed moved to a speed fast enough to entertain me.

“I’ve got a long day,” I state.

“You’re so fuckin’ weird,” Matt huffs.

We weren’t natural friends. When I moved to Los Santos I’d had little to no money and was just beginning to hatch a few get rich quick schemes. It’s hard to think about friends when I know that I will outlive them, but Matt had put an ad out for a roommate and I’d been just needy enough to answer it. Since then he’d switched jobs and could have easily taken over the lease on his own, but instead decided that he regarded me as a friend and told me to stick around.

So now we were just two rich people living in a nearly uninhabitable apartment. Neither of us seemed able to bring ourselves to move.

“Do I smell?” I ask.

Any other human on earth would have been confused or weirded out by my question, but Matt is used to it. He bends towards me and takes an exaggerated sniff. “Not yet.”

“Cool.” I down the rest of my coffee and get back up. I’m fairly certain I’ve already seen the episode he’s watching but I can’t for the life of me remember how it ends.

“What are you up to today?” Matt asks, always curious. Sometimes it feels like he honestly still expects me to answer. This time he doesn’t bother looking at me.

I hum to myself and clean out my mug, wondering what kind of attire is appropriate when meeting a client in person. I briefly think about asking Matt, but realize that it would lead to me having to tell him what I’m up to. I allow him to be my friend so long as he knows nothing about me that matters.

I’ve been alive too long and made too many enemies. Knowledge may be power, but I’m too keenly aware of how it’s also a danger to slip up over something stupid.

I end up changing into a black outfit that leaves Matt laughing as I walk out the door. “What are you, a cat burglar?” he calls.

I shrug and send him a smile as I close the door behind me. As I’m skipping down the stairs of our apartment building I can hear him calling out for me to wait and come back.

Halfway to my meet spot the sky decides to open up and unload on me. It’s enough to send my legs tingling. It’s enough to make my fingertips prune. I should turn around and cancel the meet, but my phone is buzzing on the seat beside me telling me that Matt wouldn’t leave me alone long enough for me to get to the bathtub.

As it is I might have to take a detour for the ocean.

I hate water. I hate what it does to me. But most of all I hate how it’s a constant reminder of how exactly I got here.

I’d chosen Los Santos for it’s sunny disposition and it’s proximity to large bodies of water. It hardly rained enough to be a problem, but on the rare occasions when it poured I had plenty of escape routes for when my body began to betray me.

A sticky wetness begins to fill my shoe and I groan, tugging the steering wheel and veering towards the beach. It’s still dark enough out and early enough that no one should be out and about. I won’t have enough time to do more than dive for the water by the time I get out of the car and into the rain. I’ll have to take my clothes with me.

I send a glare towards my cell phone, still ringing, and realize I’m going to have to leave it behind. It won’t survive the salt water and waves.

My neck is starting to ache as gills form and steal the air from my lungs. The humidity has gotten too high, even inside the car. My body knows what my mind refuses to accept.

This is inevitable.

I park half in the sand, taking the keys with me and locking the car as I sprint towards the water. My legs are losing their rigidity with every step, bones snapping in and out of place as they figure out how to become a tail while I’m still running.

The dive I take should hurt. I’m at the wrong angle. Salt water streams up my nose and into my mouth and eyes. It takes a second for my ears to adjust to the pressure, but when they do I start to listen for larger fish. For sharks. I don’t want to deal with it today, not with the water as dark and tumultuous as it is.

My mood is practically more stormy than the weather at this point.

It doesn’t take long to get to the alcove where I keep a bag hidden. I pull myself up over the rocks as quickly as possible and allow my body to revert into something half human and half other as I hide myself from the rain. I search the bag carefully to make sure I still had an extra set of car keys. I’d still have to trek all the way back to where I parked the car and I’m not even entirely sure which beach I dove from.

Time has a habit of blurring together in my head. There’s point A, there’s point B, and then there is the mind numbing sludge of everything in between.

Point A was crawling from the lake, staving off a bleeding bite from a creature I didn’t realize could disease me. Point A was William being pulled beneath the surface in the one place we were forbidden to go and me resurfacing alone. Point A is the last real part of my history that mattered.

Point B is whatever my working memory can hold and my working memory notoriously can’t hold much.

It takes hours for the rain to stop, but when it does the sun comes out of hiding almost immediately. It doesn’t reach into my alcove more than a few tendrils along the rocky floor, but it’s enough. I drag a towel across my skin and hang it near the front of the alcove in hopes that it’ll dry out by the time I need it again.

The clothes in the bag have a much less cat burglar vibe, but I figure a T-shirt and jeans are probably what my client expects from me anyway. Hackers and information brokers have a tendency to be eccentric people. As far as I know, anyway.

I scale the rocks outside the alcove and pop up on dry land near the road. I take the walk back to my car slow, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my skin, drying me out better than any towel could. I hate the water but it loves me. It clings.

By the time I get to my meeting I’m an hour late.

“That desperate?” I ask, poking absently at the red cap I’d instructed him to wear. He pulls it off his head and glares across the table at me as I sit down. The lighting in the room is dark enough that I can’t tell whether his wispy hair is brown or black. Instead, I note the tattoos trailing down out of his sleeves, covering his wrists and hands as he wrings them against the table in front of me. The tired look in his eyes is enough to tell me it’s my neck that he wishes he was wringing. “You’re right, you’re not really a red cap kind of guy,” I say with a small nod.

His eyes narrow further.

I reach across the table and give him my hand and he shakes it rougher than purely necessary. Not that I can blame him. 

“You can call me Finn.”


	2. Stitch By Stitch I Tear Apart

“No questions,” the man warns, opening up his menu to order.

It’s an odd request, but definitely not the weirdest I’ve ever been given. I open up my own menu, but I’ve already decided I’m not hungry enough for anything more than a salad. I pull my hair carefully back into a bun while I wait for him to make the next move and end up pulling stray brown hairs from between my fingers. The bit of bright red at the ends reminds me I need to pick up more dye.

When the man realizes I don’t plan on commenting on his request he glances up at me over the top of his menu. There’s a keen moment where we notice we’re sizing each other up but mutually refuse to stop, then he sets his menu back down.

The waiter swoops in to take our orders, like he’d been waiting for a sign that we were ready and this man had just unwittingly given it.

A glance around the room is enough to set me on edge. I hadn’t noticed how fancy this place was.

I don’t belong.

“I’ll have the fish.”

I narrow my eyes at him from across the table but the waiter is turning towards me expectantly. Besides, there’s no way he could have meant for his order to offend me.

I shove my menu towards him. “Salad.”

The waiter nods and takes off again, but the man across from me is raising his eyebrows. “That’s a waste.”

I shrug and lean back in my seat. My periphery is enough to see that we are the only two people in this restaurant so clearly underdressed. He doesn’t seem to mind, though, so I snap my attention back to him, wishing I’d had the foresight to take off my hoodie before leaving my car. I could do with a bit of a safety blanket.

“You know I’m paying, right?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Well, I’d expect to be paid for services rendered.”

He rolls his eyes and leans his elbows against the table. “For lunch.”

I nod and get in one more sweeping glance. I’m not stupid. I knew what he’d meant. I use my time to check and make sure that he’s alone. Check to make sure no one is listening. I have to be careful here in Los Santos. It’s a big city, but there’s always a fly on the wall watching, hoping to get paid for the right gossip.

If the man across from me is who I believe he is then it’s an expensive and dangerous bit of gossip they’d be pedaling.

When my eyes reconnect with his the annoyance seems to have melted right off his shoulders. There’s an amusement in his eyes that shakes me. I never intend to amuse people, so when it happens it’s generally a bad sign.

“I have what you need, but this is generally where I ask a few questions,” I explain. His eyes darken considerably and I hold up a hand. “So I’m waiting for you to show me how to proceed.”

“You want me to tell you what I need,” he states.

“As specifically as possible,” I say, tilting my head to make sure he knows I understand the confidentiality problems the couple in the booth next to us may pose.

He watches me carefully for a moment so I grin back. I know I have a way of unsettling people, but the selkie blood in my veins keeps them reeled in. It’s an odd line to walk, being repellant and captivating at the same time. If I say the right words it’s a siren’s song.

Silver tongued.

I tend to not speak often.

“I need to know about this new group, the one we discussed previously.” He sent a sidelong glance at the booth beside us, but they haven’t stopped their conversation long enough to take notice of us. I wave for him to continue. He sets his eyes uneasily back on me. “I need all the information you can give me. My usual guy can’t seem to dig up anything.”

“Everything,” I state. Everything was a lacking descriptor.

The waiter sweeps by with his fish and my salad. I pointedly look at nothing but my own food and his face. I don’t even thank the waiter as he leaves.

The man almost pleads with his eyes. “Finn,” he says and I’m startled until I remember I’d told him what to call me. My eyes stray to his fish and I try to hide my cringe by resettling in my seat. I’m not sure if it’s a natural part of me condition, but all the same it’s unsettling to know that it and I came from the same place.

“You never gave me a name,” I say, turning my attention up to his face.

He shakes his head like he doesn’t have time for this, but he has a whole meal to eat in front of him and I have my salad. I pick at the greens with my fork and take a small bite, testing the vinaigrette more than anything. When he still doesn’t say anything I reach across and stab a bit of potato off of his plate.

I’m not entirely sure why I do it, but the potato is delicious so it’s not like I regret it either.

When I meet his eyes they are made of steel. “I’ll pay for everything you’ve got.”

“And extra for keeping all of this so clandestine.” I mean it as a question, but I don’t phrase it as one. One corner of his mouth twitches up in an almost smile and it’s enough confirmation for me. I nod and set my left hand palm down on the table, the usb drive cupped beneath it.

“You’re not going to ask how much?” he asks, seeming surprised by my willingness. “Not going to ask how?”

I shrug. “You found me once to ask for the meeting and I trust you’re a man of your word.” I’m nearly certain that he’s who I fear he is. I imagine an army waiting for me should I refuse. Not that I was going to. “You can get in touch again, I’m sure.” I keep my eyes on my salad and push my hand a little further across the table.

“I am,” he says, giving me half a nod. “I will.” He slowly inches his fingers towards mine. I hold his hand for a moment, taking another bite of my salad.

“What a nice date we are on, thank you for paying, what a gentleman.” I smile as I take a bite of more lettuce. I’m not meeting his eyes mostly because I’m sure I’ll laugh if I do. He squeezes my hand, questioning my grip, but when I don’t move to respond he clumsily takes a bite of fish and I realize I’ve taken his dominant hand hostage.

The smallest laugh escapes my lips before I let go and allow my hand to snake back under the table. I refuse to be embarrassed for not noticing which hand he’d been holding his fork in, but it is enough to be worthy of shame.

When I finally glance up again he’s smiling. I can see it. The _god you’re awkward and it’s cute_. It’s written on his face. I grimace back down into my bowl. A normal person, a non-Selkie, would have stumbled there and it would have been cringe-worthy. Everything I do seems to draw people in further.

Usually it requires me to speak, but some people are too easy to manipulate or too intune with body language.

I’m definitely not hungry enough to eat the rest of my salad now.

“I’d best be going now,” I say, pushing my bowl closer to the middle of our table and standing. He reaches for my wrist but I’m faster and more used to catching men’s eyes. I pull away a few steps before I turn around.

“You’ll hear from me soon,” he says, pausing a little. I glance over my shoulder and notice how much attention we’ve garnered. “Love,” he adds, tacked onto the end late enough to feel wrong. He looks as annoyed by it as I feel, which at the very least means I could have misread the situation and at worst means he’s waking up from whatever daze he’d been put into by my presence.

I barely nod before getting the hell out of there.

In my car I take a moment to calm down and breathe. This is why I try to do everything from home. This guy had insisted nothing be transferred online, no matter how encrypted and safe I tried to tell him it was.

My phone buzzes in the passenger seat and I barely realize I’m picking it up before it hits my ear.

“I’ve been calling you all day.”

I shake my head to clear it. Immediately something is wrong enough to send a blind panic racing through my chest. “Shouldn’t you be asleep by now, Matt?”

“That’s why I’ve been calling,” he sighs. “When will you get home?”

I start the car and put it in drive. “On my way. What’s wrong?”

“Your computer has been making the worst noises all day.” I can hear him moving around in the kitchen and just like that my stomach pangs with hunger. I roll my eyes, but punch the gas a little harder. “Like, I tried to go make sure it wasn’t going to blow up but you installed locks on your door.”

“Because you keep walking into my room.” I turn a corner too sharp and hear someone honk at me.

“No, but why do you need so many locks, you aren’t actually a cat burglar are you?” he asks. Something screeches loudly behind him. I flinch back from the noise. My ears don’t work as well above water, but they work well enough.

“The fuck was that?”

Matt sighs. “Your computer. Listen, I don’t want to lose the deposit on this place and I don’t wanna be evicted for blowing it up.”

I hang up and toss my phone back into the passenger seat. It doesn’t take more than a few more minutes to get home and I’m up the stairs in record time.

Matt’s head snaps in the direction of the door as I open it and he motions with his whole body towards the hallway that leads towards our rooms.

I skip past him towards the screeching. “Drama queen.”

“Buy better equipment,” he counters.

“It’s not the equipment,” I call over my shoulder. I’m already working to unlock the three locks on the door. If someone broke in this is the first place they’d focus on getting into. No one is this paranoid for nothing.

Except maybe me.

I just hate being disturbed and know that Matt has a penchant for picking locks.

The noise only gets louder when I swing my door open and I hear Matt call in protest from the kitchen. I slam the door behind me and allow the sound to bounce off the walls. A large part of me considers smashing the tower to shut it up.

Instead I slide into my desk chair and start trying to figure out what kind of malware this is. I must have stumbled into something I shouldn’t have, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

Some of the sound escapes when my door opens again. “The neighbors have complained already.”

I’m not finding whatever is causing this, not that I’ve looked all that hard. I glance to my closet where I know I have a tool box and a sledgehammer. It’s not exactly for moments like this but the noise is piercing enough and it’s source is hidden enough that I’ll use it. I rub at my forehead to try and stop the migraine I can already feel coming.

I point to the closet, still searching my files and programs. “Sledgehammer.”

Matt moves to the closet and opens it, but no handle touches my waiting hand. “What the fuck?”

I groan and get up to get it for myself.

“You’re not serious are you?” He has to yell to be heard. I motion for him to hand it over and he reluctantly does.

“I’ll get a new one. This is a nuisance.”

Finally he hands me the sledgehammer and I immediately swing it as hard as I can at the tower. It only takes the one hit to silence it, but I swing another two times.

“Why not just unplug it?” Matt asks, holding his hands out for the sledgehammer. I hand it over and get out of the way. He grunts as he swings it as hard as he can at the tower.

“Hadn’t thought about it,” I murmur, motioning for him to wait a second and then moving the monitor so it could be destroyed too. Just in case.

Matt hesitates before taking another swing. The screen crunches in a satisfying way and I shiver. He looks back at me.

“Annalise,” he says.

I glance down towards the screen, but it’s black and dead. “What?”

There’s laughter in his dark brown eyes when I look back up. “You’re a goddamn menace and I love you.” He looks back to the pile of broken technology before swinging again, but I freeze up.

I remind myself that he’s gay. I remind myself that that’s why it’s okay for me to live here with him. He will never feel the siren’s pull. Not towards me. Somehow it’s not enough, though, knowing that. The words still eat at me until I force myself to stiffly walk back out of my room.

I can still hear Matt swinging at the computer from the living room and then the kitchen. He’s laughing by the time I pull the Jameson out of the low cabinet. He’s done by the time I’m drinking it straight from the bottle.


	3. A Stained Glass Variation of the Truth

The Fakes need no introduction. If you live in Los Santos you’ve heard of them. Whether you revere or despise them is irrelevant.

Ramsey was known for his tattoos, the humor he religiously injects into his heists, and his calm strength. Rumor was that he radiated power. I have a tendency to disregard rumor until there’s something with a bit more spine backing it up.

In the dark restaurant the tattoos were all I could pick up for sure. It was enough to put me on edge, so maybe the rumors weren’t so off the mark.

Ramsey and Pattillo had found each other in the unlikeliest of places. Rehab. Ramsey’s vices were well-known and so was the fact that he’d split off from a much larger gang known as the Roosters when he went to rid himself of them. The Roosters hadn’t lasted long after that, mostly devolving into smaller crews in far off cities. As far as anyone can tell they still hold a friendly alliance at the very least.

Pattillo is another story entirely. No matter how hard I searched I couldn’t pull up much of anything on her. Before the Fakes, her only appearance was on security footage in casinos around the country. A traveling act often picked on for being a cheat. A con artist with a skill that undoubtedly caught Ramsey’s attention.

They’d left rehabilitation with a plan. Within a month they’d picked up Jones and had garnered the attention of the Vagabond, a notorious freelancer. It didn’t take all that much longer to pick up another ex-Rooster of generally little note known as Free and an old partner of Jones who went by BrownMan.

They stuck to Los Santos and made themselves at home, picking off bigger crews like they were doing nothing more than swatting at flies. They protected their home like the rest of the world didn’t exist, like the thought of packing up and moving to less hostile territory would be insane.

In the end they lost BrownMan for it, though there were endless conflicting reports on what that meant. Whether he’d moved or died no one can seem to agree.

The Fakes are misfits, by any standards. That’s what I blame their following on. Citizens of Los Santos can see themselves in the Fakes, delude themselves into believing the crew is made up of vigilantes instead of criminals. It’s sometimes too convenient to forget that they too have an abhorrent kill count on their hands.

What makes them terrifying to the well informed is their connections. What makes them extraordinary are their gifts, and I know gifts well.

Gifts, in the beginning, were bestowed upon those born of monsters. Today those monsters are practically extinct, making me an outlier. What it means is that the gifts have become spread out and watered down. The descendant of a selkie in my time might have had my silver tongue, the siren’s song, or maybe the ability to transform into a half-seal in water. Today the gift might have twisted itself into something less recognizable, like the ability to breathe underwater or webbed toes.

Regardless it’s become a wide known phenomenon and I’m inclined to believe that the Fakes all have one of them. Its the center of plenty of fanboy theories and it’s the only good explanation for their ability to consistently take on more than they can chew yet still, somehow, survive.

I close my eyes and lean my head back against my desk chair, stretching my arms out and up. Computer parts lay out in a circle around me as I try to get them to fit inside the case right. This isn’t how I was planning on spending my weekend. I have at least three contracts that I need to work on - information to dig up and compile.

Information on the Fakes is clouding my mind too much for me even to begin trying to put anything together from memory. All of my important things, backups and copies of everything I know, are in a safe in the back of my closet, but without a computer they’re impossible to access.

It’ll be at least 24 hours lost by the time I get this done.

If I wasn’t such a pack rat and a procrastinator I’d have lost more time. As it is I have enough parts sitting around to do a decent build without needing to order anything major. I’m fitting the side of the case into place with my screwdriver in my mouth when the front door opens.

I could get up and shut my door to stop Matt from coming and bugging me or I can trust that he’s tired after working all night and will go right to bed. I’m too tired in the end to bother moving.

There’s an eerily familiar sounding click from the hall and it takes me a second to figure out why it’s wrong. I drop the screwdriver into my hand. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I puzzle through it, too frozen to get up or turn around and look.

Matt’s door doesn’t open or close. There’s the creaking of a loose floorboard near my door and suddenly I figure it out.

A gun. It’s the sound of a gun.

Further, I remember that Matt doesn’t use guns. Unlike most citizens of Los Santos, he refuses to keep one.

I don’t have time to stand up and hold my ground because whoever’s cocking a gun in my hallway realizes they’ve made too much noise. I hear them rush at me just as I start to stand and barely get a hit in, the screwdriver as close to a blade as I’ll be getting, before I’m being pinned to my desk with a hand at my throat and a gun to my temple. Somewhere in the background of it all I hear the tool hit the ground.

I didn’t even get a scratch in. He’s too fast and much too strong.

A skull mask leers down at me and I feel my entire body go cold and numb.

The malware on my computer transferred to theirs.

After a silence that drags on too long I finally catch the nerve to say something. “Hey.”

Somehow I manage to sound like I have a spine of some sort. I’ve lived my whole life running and hiding, though, so I’m under a completely different impression of myself and I’m sure my own surprise is entirely transparent.

Vagabond scoffs down at me and loosens his grip a little. I notice that I at least managed to set his mask askew, but the lean only makes it appear more menacing.

“Can I ask to what I owe this pleasure?” I ask, but the backbone to my tone has disappeared. Fear seeps through in the vowels, widening them a bit too funky to sound strictly American.

The muzzle of the gun digs deeper into my temple but the Vagabond doesn’t dignify me with a response.

It’s enough to annoy me. “Well, this is all well and fun, I know, but I’ve got shit to be doing so if you don’t mind.” I reach up to push the gun away, a gentle suggestion more than a demand. My back is starting to ache with the odd angle I’m bent, my desk digging into my tailbone hard enough to bruise.

He moves the gun enough to bat my hand away and then it’s back at my head.

I’d been operating on my computer under lamplight so the room is too dark for me to see more than his eyes, but their ice is enough of a view for me. Black makeup must coat the area around his eyes to make them stand out so much, but the distinctive blue of his irises is probably enough for anyone who gets too close to identity him regardless.

“Listen, I could hazard a guess as to why you’re here,” I say, kicking at the computer at my feet that I’d been putting together all night.

His eyes dart down long enough to identify what I was kicking before focusing on me again. The hand on my throat squeezes a little tighter and I realize I’ve made a bad move.

“What did you do?” he asks. I’m not sure if I’d expected a meeker voice from someone who had avoided talking so much, but it’s not what I got. What I got was a growl that left my hair standing on end. Gravel and warning.

I flinch back as far as his hands will allow me. “I stumbled upon something I shouldn’t have. I didn’t realize I transferred it to you guys,” I speak fast, trying to find a solution for us both. “I can fix it. I can fix it for free.”

His eyes narrow, but he loosens his grip. I think the only thing going in my favor is that I’m not fighting him. What he doesn’t realize is that once he lets me go it’ll take me all of five minutes to disappear. Whatever hell I’d accidentally brought down upon us wouldn’t end up effecting me at all in the end.

“What is it?” he asks.

I twitch my head to the side in lieu of shaking it. “No idea. I destroyed mine before I got a good look at it.” I point to the swept up pile of pummeled computer parts in the corner as proof.

“You what?” He sends the briefest glance towards the corner and then back to me incredulously. “That’s your computer?”

I nod as much as I can. “I live in an apartment. I’m assuming yours is screeching just as loudly?” The guarded look he takes on tells me all I need to know. I nod again. “I didn’t plan on getting evicted this week.”

“How does your landlord feel about blood stains?” he asks. I can’t immediately tell if he means it as a threat or if he’s honestly interested. For all I know it’s his attempt at a joke.

I open my mouth but it takes me a second to find any words to say. “I never thought to ask.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat that I can’t even begin to decipher before letting me go. He keeps the gun trained on me but backs up enough to get a look at the destroyed computer in the corner. I’d planned on driving it to a dumpster somewhere on the other side of the city, but obviously hadn’t quite gotten that far.

He gestures his gun towards the pile for a second. “What’d you do to it?”

Instead of answering I point to the sledgehammer still leaning against my closet. I rub at my throat a little, hoping the ache doesn’t stick around too long. I bend forward to try to get the kink my desk caused out of my back. Some days it’s painfully easy to remember how old I am.

Vagabond turns his full attention back to me, head cocked slightly to the side. “Why didn’t you just unplug it.”

I fight the urge to flip him off by shoving my hands deep into the pockets of my jeans. I lift my shoulders in a shrug I don’t quite complete. The name of the game is not to get killed now, not by someone who doesn’t realize what a rare monster they’d be destroying at least.

Selkies don’t exist anymore. Not outside myth and legend and even the myths and legends don’t get close to touching whatever I am. According to legend a Selkie bite does nothing. According to legend Selkies aren’t even a dangerous breed of monster.

In legend a Selkie is a seal in the water and a human on land. They have a skin that they must wear to change and if someone steals that skin they’ll be stuck in a human form and forever long for the sea. What I am is some kind of bastardized hybrid.

Vagabond shifts his stance and I straighten up. “I didn’t do it, but I’m sorry it happened,” I say. I wait for him to give me some kind of ruling on the matter, but we end up just standing and staring at each other in silence. The clock on the wall behind his head tells me Matt should be home soon.

I sigh. “My roommate doesn’t know what I do and he’s gonna come walking through the front door here soon. I really need you to figure out what you’re gonna do here.” It’s the most honesty I can afford him right now, though the thought of dying here is unfathomable.

He disarms his gun and lowers it to his side. “Ramsey said you were a threat,” he says in a way that leads me to believe he disagrees. They’re both technically right. Right now, though, I’m barely a speck on the threat radar and we both know it.

I wait to see what he wants me to do. At this point I don’t care either way so long as I live to run tomorrow.

After a long moment of staring each other down Vagabond sighs and motions with the gun for me to lead the way out. I hold my arms up near my face and leave the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was lightly edited, if something is worded wrong please let me know so I can fix it!


	4. And I Felt Empty Handed

I make it a foot outside my apartment building before there’s material wrapped around my head and I’m being shoved around. It takes effort to not fight back. Going limp transfers most of my annoyance to the Vagabond. He groans as he drags me across my parking lot.

“I don’t weigh that much,” I grumble, allowing my feet to drag a little heavier than necessary.

He answers me by shoving me up and over a metal lip into the trunk of a car. I feel around, trying to find a good place to curl up among the junk he hadn’t bothered to clean out.

“Remember how I _offered_ to help?” I ask, shimmying to the back wall of the trunk.

He answers by slamming the trunk shut. The noise is loud enough that I reach to cover my ears. He hadn’t bound my arms or my legs, there’s nothing stopping me from pulling the bag from my head. As the car starts I toy with the idea of taking it off if for no other reason than to breathe freely. The car rolls into reverse and I use my hands to stabilize myself instead.

I spread my legs out as far as I can and put one arm out toward the edge of the trunk and the other forearm against the ceiling. I count the seconds between turns even though I know my memory is too shot to actually remember them. My sense of time doesn’t really exist, so when the car stops I have no way of knowing how long I’ve been shoved back here. I’ve forgotten how many seconds were between the first turns. I’ve forgotten the direction of every turn except for the last.

A right turn into an uphill driveway. We were in the suburbs somewhere most likely. I allow myself to slide towards the front of the trunk and hold my arms in front of my face to make sure he knows I don’t plan on fighting.

If I can manage to get out of this just bruised it’ll be a miracle, but I’ll still try.

The trunk opens and it takes him a second to reach in for me. I can guess he was making sure everything was in place, but anything could have stalled him in all honesty.

“Get out,” he intones, a hand wrapping tightly around one of my arms.

I reach with my other arm for the edge of the trunk and shift a leg out. “You got neighbors?” I ask. What kind of excuse could they have for this kind of behavior?

I get a grunt in response which is more than I expected to get. At this point I’m just talking in hopes of making myself less nervous. I’ve gotten myself into plenty of situations in the past, but this seems the most fated to end in death that I’ve come in years.

By the time I’m on my feet I’ve got the familiar weight of a gun barrel shoved into my spine. He pushes me like that forward, grabbing my shoulder to turn me as we maneuver our way inside.

“Step,” he grunted just before I tripped over a stair.

I throw my arms out to catch myself but his hand wraps itself in the hood of my sweatshirt before I can get too far.

He sighs. “Three steps.”

“More forewarning would have been nice,” I say, keeping my voice light despite my toes already starting to throb from the impact and the hoodie pulled uncomfortably tight to my chest. When he lets go I tug at the hem to straighten it back out. He nudges me forward.

The door opens before I reach it and someone grabs my arm and drags me over the threshold hard enough to make me lose my balance. Vagabond twists a hand into my hood again, but this time he doesn’t let go.

“She’s clumsy,” he explains. The muzzle of the gun doesn’t make a reappearance. Instead he uses the hand fisted into my sweater to push and pull me along, holding it high enough that when I trip over something I’m already being pulled back to my feet. I move my hands to hold the neck of my sweater and keep it from choking me out.

“I’m also not fighting,” I remind him. My knuckles dig in behind my jaw as he lifts me higher. If the rough ride in the trunk didn’t leave me with bruises then this certainly would. It effectively kept me from opening my mouth again, though. Instead I let out a high pitched groan of protest at the sharper tugs.

“If you kill her before she can fix the problem then this whole endeavor was pointless.” While the voice is familiar it’s not enough for me to know who it is for sure. I’d hazard a guess, though. Ramsey.

Vagabond drops me. I’m surprised enough that I actually fall to my knees.

“She was breathing.”

A boot nudges into the back of my thigh and I take it as a cue to stand back up. I point to the material around my head as I do. “When can I take this off? It kinda smells.” The air inside was growing increasingly more stale.

“I’m surprised you’re still wearing it at all.” This voice is less familiar than the rest, but I can identify it. Pattillo, Ramsey’s right hand and the only known woman on the crew. Her voice has been picked up on by the police for years.

I take it as an excuse and rip the bag from my head. I allow myself a few deep breaths of new air while I blink the sudden light out of my eyes. I’m in a living room, I can tell that much without looking around. There are heavy curtains and a couple couches, but what I look at instead is Ramsey.

“Can I just say for the last time that I came here willingly and that I don’t appreciate the hostility?” I rub at my throat a little in emphasis, before turning a glare at the Vagabond over my shoulder. He stares back, clearly bored now that he’s not allowed to rough me up anymore. When I look back to Ramsey he looks amused at least.

“Hostility?” he asks, the bubble of a laugh bending the pitch of his voice.

Pattillo beside him, shakes her head. “Trust me, this ain’t hostility.” I allow myself to take in the short red bob of her hair, the small smile she’s fixing me with, the fact that she’s a whole inch taller than Ramsey. None of it felt real in the LSPD files on her. Yet here she is.

“Then what would you call it?” I ask, dropping my hands. I don’t expect an answer so I power on. “I don’t know what he told you,” I start, hiking a thumb backwards at Vagabond, “but I didn’t do this on purpose and I immediately offered to fix it.” I’ve never had a problem with eye contact before but I realize I’m having trouble now.

There’s something about being in the middle of their triangle that is beyond unsettling.

“What is it?” Pattillo asks when no one else offers to say anything.

I shrug. “I plan to figure that out.”

“She took a sledgehammer to her computer,” Vagabond drawls from behind me, like that is the only part of this situation worthy of his amusement. I resist the urge to turn around and face him. Ideally I’d stand sideways between all of them, but I don’t want to be perceived as rude so I stay put.

Ramsey raises an eyebrow so I shrug again.

“Where’d it come from?” Pattillo asks next, sending a look I don’t understand to Ramsey. I watch her nudge him in the side, but he doesn’t react.

I glance between them for a second. “Probably the Sharks, honestly. You paid me to look into them and before that the malware didn’t exist on my computer. I must have stumbled upon a corrupted source while I was searching.” It’s the best guess I’ve got, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.

Ramsey crosses his arms against his chest, tightening his stance. “You weren’t working on anything else?”

“I do one job at a time.” I don’t mention it’s because I’d end up screwing up people’s orders. I’d forget who asked for what or which files went where. It’s not like I can leave myself notes for those kinds of things, that’s exactly the kind of trail I can’t afford to leave behind.

I think of something that makes my stomach bottom out. “Is this where you opened the files?” I glance around the room. This looks like a home, a hideout. It’s a place I can’t see them wanting to lose.

Pattillo nods slowly, but seems to pick up on my anxiety. She glances around the room too as I reach into my pocket for my cell phone. Vagabond’s gun presses into my back again, but I keep digging.

“I left my phone behind,” I explain, still searching even though I know already that it’s pointless.

“Why do you need your phone?”

“That roommate I mentioned should be home by now, if something was tracking the malware…” I allow myself to trail off, the cold fingers of panic squeezing against my throat. The only way I’ll know for sure is to either go home now, which isn’t an option, or dig through their computer until I figure out what this thing is. “Where’s the computer?” I ask, louder than I intend.

Every breath is a gasp and I can feel all three pairs of eyes watching me as I leave the room without instruction. Pattillo calls out directions and I jog to follow them, finding the computer on a desk in a small office room.

Before anybody can protest I plug it in and wait for it to boot up.

“You don’t need a roommate,” Vagabond states, gun still in hand but pointing to the floor.

I shake my head. “I’m an idiot.”

He tilts his head one way then the other, making it obvious he’s not going to tell me I’m wrong.

“I don’t intend to let him die,” I point out, my leg starting to bounce in impatient energy.

“I meant you don’t need a roommate because you have money,” he says. I can hear his eyes rolling in his words, but before I can find words to explain my need to keep Matt around despite the danger it brought the computer boots up and starts screeching.

I press my hands to my ears and duck down like it’ll help. The sound is enough to rattle me back into action. After a minute of searching the desk, headphones are lowered clumsily over my ears. I right them without thinking much of it before continuing to look for the source. The noise isn’t cancelled out entirely, but it’s quieter. I can think straight now. It takes another ten minutes before I find it and even longer for me to read it.

It’s a masterpiece of sorts. A cocktail fit for James Bond. The most important bits, though, are that it allows the creator access to the computer through a well-crafted and well-hidden back door. It can lead them right to this computer. To mine if they’d paid attention before I destroyed it.

Still I can’t bring myself to kill it. I reach around the back of the tower until my fingers feel the flash drive I’d given Ramsey. I move it to the flash drive before I get rid of it. For safekeeping. My heart is hammering at my rib cage like my ribs are bars on a prison it needs to escape, but I need to be able to pick and prod at this later. To look at it and understand it and apply it. I pocket the flash drive before bothering to take off the headphones.

“I have to go,” I say before I turn around and see who’s still in the room with me. Just Ramsey and Vagabond, but without the noise cancellation of the headphones I can hear the movement of a lot more people outside this room.

Ramsey nods so I bolt. By the time I reach the front door I realize I’m being tailed. At a glance I can tell it’s Vagabond.

“Giving me a ride back?” I ask hopefully, already running for the back of his car. I don’t have time to complain or second guess. Instead Vagabond points to the passenger door and I scramble to get in.

The Fakes were never the intended target here. I was. The Sharks had the malware in place to catch people like me who looked at them a little too closely. They had no way of knowing that this second location was the Fakes. Not if the Fakes’ hacker was anywhere near proficient, anyway.

What they do know is my address.

And that I know far too much about them.

I don’t wait for the car to stop before I’m throwing the door open and jumping out. I miscalculate and stumble a few steps, landing hard enough on my knees to rip my jeans. Vagabond is there before I can manage to get back to my feet on my own, pulling me forward by my hood. I nearly thank him.

When I realize I don’t have keys for the front door he shoots out the glass. I run both flights of stairs up instead of waiting for the elevator, my ears ringing, and when I don’t have the keys for my apartment either I start to kick at the door. The apartment across the hall locks their door. If my luck means anything they’ve also called the police. I throw all of my weight into a kick next to my handle.

Vagabond shoves me out of the way and attempts it himself. It takes two kicks to get the door to open and it opens at a speed that imbeds the handle in the wall of our dining room. It’s what I get for putting in my own heavy locks.

I push past him and into my apartment but the whole place is a mess. One of my couches is overturned and the bookshelves have been knocked over. I can feel my heart pounding out a beat that feels wrong, can feel the breath as it leaves my mouth the shape of something solid and heavy. I don’t think before I’m sprinting for Matt’s door.

I throw myself against it a couple times before I’m roughly pulled aside. I can hear annoyance in the Vagabond’s grunt as he kicks in this door too. He moves in quickly, gun drawn before I get a chance to shove him out of the way again. I slip in under his raised arms and search the room, the one good part of being short and flexible.

At first glance the bedroom is just as destroyed but empty as the rest of the apartment. On a second glance I notice an open window. I didn’t even know our windows could open.

I run to look out the window, to make sure there isn’t a Matt sized splat on the pavement, but as I pass the bed my legs are pulled out from under me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m the worst.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, I recognize that this is not how selkies work and that the guys have barely made an appearance yet, but I promise they’ll become more important. Like I said, I mean this to be a fun little fic, but I hope you enjoyed it enough to stick around for the ride. 
> 
> Also I’m writing this on my phone so if you notice a mistake let me know please!
> 
> I’ll do my best to post on a semi-regular schedule, but sometimes life gets in the way.


End file.
